Electrical cable connectors are commonly used various electrical technologies, and in particular, in the field of high voltage energy transmission. U.S. Pat. No. 5,201,914, discloses a known electrical connector to mechanically and electrically connect two ends of cables using a tubular electrically conductive sleeve together with screws that fix the cable within the sleeve.
Furthermore, straight joints are commonly used to connect polymeric insulating cables to cover the electric connection of the joint with electrically insulating elastic sleeves and include a Faraday cage like screening. One known method to mount an elastic covering sleeve over the connector area is to pre-expand a silicone rubber body using a known spiral holdout system. By destroying the spiral, the pre-expanded silicone material returns to a shrunken state, where it is in direct mechanical contact with the cable and the cable connector. Alternatively, heat shrinkable material can be used as a holdout, and is described in WO 2014/095563, A1. Finally, an elastic sleeve can also be assembled by sliding over the connector and using lubricating grease, for instance silicone grease, in order to reduce friction sufficiently for the assembly.
This known assembly method has the advantage that it neither uses an additional spiral, which causes a lot of waste, nor needs the presence of a heat source. However, for successfully mounting the sleeve over the electrical connector in a slide on technique, it is essential that the electrical connector have an absolutely smooth outer surface and a smooth inner surface of the elastic sleeve. Even small openings might lead to an interruption of the grease film and therefore disturb the mounting process.